Party Like It's 1998
by hiddenhibernian
Summary: "Still, nil desperandum. I heard Aberforth Dumbledore's goat died; now that's someone who'd consider you quite the catch," Malfoy added. Neville wondered how long you'd get in Azkaban for strangulation. It's New Year's Eve 2001 and there's a party in Grimmauld Place. Something is up with Ginny, and Neville is even more oblivious than usual. Life after the war isn't exactly perfect.
1. Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New

**This was originally written for the 2013 Mini-Fest on ****Livejournal, a holiday fest for the Happy Potter fandom. **  


**ScottPress was kind enough to be my beta for this story – thank you so much for all your help, I really appreciate it! **

**S. Fawcett was the student who suddenly sprouted a beard when she tried to cheat the age line protecting the Goblet of Fire. I've given her a first name and assumed she was in the same year as Harry.**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New**

**-oOo-**

Sarah Fawcett couldn't quite believe her own eyes. Here she was in Grimmauld Place, partying with Dumbledore's Army just like she was one of them!

Over in the corner, Ron Weasley was throwing back tequila shots with Lavender Brown and Lee Jordan like they were going out of fashion. A boom box enchanted by Hermione Granger, who had finally stopped hovering around it anxiously, was blaring out something about letting the dogs out. Just now, Harry Potter had passed through the throng of people, pausing to slap Seamus on the back, even throwing a quick smile in Sarah's direction. He obviously had no idea who she was, but it was flattering all the same.

The room was heaving with dancing, shouting, drinking people she recognised from Hogwarts, with a heavy Gryffindor bias. Sarah knew only a few people here. Cho Chang, Terry Boot and Luna Lovegood had been in Ravenclaw too, but she had never been particularly friendly with any of them. The war had created an insurmountable divide between those at the thick of it and the others, like Sarah, who had been watching from the sidelines.

A pure-blood from a family of clockmakers, Sarah had been able to slip under the radar at Hogwarts the first term with Snape as Headmaster. After hearing her stories at Christmas her parents had decided to keep her at home and quietly gone into hiding, so she had played no part in the later stages of the war.

Sarah remembered when Harry Potter had been a student like any other. Well, he never really had been a normal student, what with his scar and being the youngest player on the Gryffindor Quidditch team since 1885 and all that. Nevertheless, before the war he had walked down the same corridors as Sarah without looking any different to the rest of them.

Afterwards, when Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood and the others had returned to take their NEWTs, it seemed like an invisible barrier had been erected between them and the other students. The others still called them Dumbledore's Army, even though it had been disbanded at the end of the war and its members stood out from the crowd in much the same way as the young Harry Potter had.

No one spoke much of those who had fought on the losing side; there was no need for a convenient shorthand describing them.

Sarah had been having a drink at the Leaky with her girlfriends, all giggles and round-faced astonishment that they could drink legally now. They had finally graduated and were old enough to be out on the town, and wasn't it exciting! When it had been Sarah's turn to get a round, she had shuffled up to the bar trying to look like buying drinks was an everyday occurrence to her, feeling very grateful that she had decided against wearing her new stiletto heels.

Out of the corner of her eye, she had seen a man standing next to her at the bar, also waiting to be served. She had been trying to figure out how to carry all the glasses back to her friends without spilling anything when he had turned around.

"You'll want a hand with that, now. Let me sort you out," he'd said in a lilting accent that made her go weak at the knees. As smooth as anything, he'd levitated her drinks all the way back to their table, just like that. Even though they all had recognised him, they had tried not to let it on and he'd introduced himself. He had rested his gaze on Sarah for a little bit longer than any of the others.

The man she'd met at the bar had been Seamus Finnegan, and he was the reason she was celebrating New Year's Eve at Harry Potter's house party.

"Fancy a drink?" Seamus shouted in Sarah's ear, and she nodded. Sure-footedly, he led her through the crowd and down the stairs, turning around all the time to check that she was following. She felt ever so special. Seamus made her feel all grown up, like she was far beyond snogging in the deserted nooks of Hogwarts and entered a new life, where war heroes with dangerous-looking scars down their cheek looked at her like she was something to eat. It was all marvellously exciting.

In the kitchen the Wizarding Wireless was blaring at a slightly lower volume. It was almost possible to talk without shouting. An impressive display of bottles had been arranged on a side table, threatening to topple over at any second. Several bottles hung in the air, filling up levitating glasses that were swiftly snatched and passed on. Seamus quickly laid his hands on two glasses of champagne and they toasted each other.

The sharp, dry taste took Sarah by surprise and she grimaced involuntarily. Somehow, it seemed appropriate that the most grown-up of drinks was an acquired taste. Sarah and Seamus were pressed tightly together by the bodies moving through the kitchen. They was so close that she could see every last freckle on Seamus' broad nose.

"Happy new year, Sarah! May good luck be with you and trouble never find you," Seamus said, the lines in the corners of his eyes crinkling. She had never been able to decide whether they were green or blue; all she knew was that he took her breath away. Before she could croak out a response, there was a crash loud enough to wake the dead, and even the out-of-tune singing from Lee Jordan and George Weasley ceased.

"Buggering hell!" The whole front of Ginny Weasley's dress was stained with something red. A punch bowl big enough to fit a giant's head laid upturned on the floor in front of her, in the middle of a puddle of dark liquid which had obviously been punch just a moment ago.

"Hey, Ginny! You're meant to drink it, not pour it out!" Charlie Weasley shouted to her from his perch by the Wireless. Even though he was by no means sober, he was quick enough to dodge the hex she sent his way in response. After putting her brother in his place Ginny turned her attention to her formerly pristine white dress. Sarah winced in sympathy. There were some things even magic couldn't do; raising the dead and removing red wine stains as bad as these were among them.

When Seamus had invited her to the most exclusive party in wizarding Britain, the last thing Sarah had expected to see was the hostess running away, crying over a ruined dress. Nevertheless, that was exactly what happened. Ginny pushed her way through the crowd and disappeared up the stairs. Sarah was the only one standing right in Ginny's way as she left the kitchen, so probably no one else noticed, but there were definitely tears in her eyes.

It had nothing to do with Sarah, but she couldn't help feeling uneasy. Ginny Weasley was more likely to blast something to pieces than fall into tears, so what on earth could be the matter?

* * *

On the other side of the invisible barrier Hermione had erected to keep the party goers out of the rest of Grimmauld Place, Ginny was barricading herself into the bathroom she shared with Harry on the third floor.

She sat down on the toilet with her head in her hands. For the last week, what had been getting to her the most was how _stupid_ she had been.

It seemed to be getting worse; now, she didn't even seem to be able to keep her act together any longer. She had fought Death Eaters, for Merlin's sake, and here she was: undone by dropping a bloody punch bowl.

Ginny knew she couldn't stay here all night, but it was definitely tempting. If only there hadn't been the bloody party to deal with, on top of everything else!

It had seemed like such a good idea when it had occurred to her to throw a big party for all their friends on New Year's Eve. She had been delighted at the prospect of putting the enormous house to use in the way it was meant to be, for once. When she had been planning the festivities, persuading Harry and sweet-talking Kreacher until he agreed to keep the guests supplied with food and booze, she had never counted on how unnerving it would be to have strangers all over their home.

She knew it had taken Hermione weeks to figure out how to modify the protection charms sufficiently to allow access to selected parts of the house for one night only, and Ginny had no reason to doubt their efficacy. It just rubbed her the wrong way to see Zacharias Smith, who had been a wanker in sixth year and still was a wanker now, sitting in Sirius' chair and knocking back shots of whiskey.

If only she could have a drink, it would at least have taken the edge off.

Well, she couldn't and that was that. She pushed the thought to the very back of her mind. Absentmindedly waving her wand at the stained dress, she vanished the dark blue patch and checked her reflection.

"That lipstick is a little loud, dear," the mirror simpered, and Ginny made a rude sign at it before sweeping out of the bathroom and heading back downstairs, shoulders squared and head held high.

She didn't expect to run into Hermione on the first floor landing. If it hadn't been for the strange expression on her face, Ginny would have assumed that Hermione was heading to her room to freshen up. They had known each other for a long time though, and something in Hermione's posture told Ginny this wasn't just about getting to the loo without having to queue up first.

"You wouldn't be sneaking off to sit in your room now, would you?" she asked suspiciously.

"Not at all," Hermione said with a completely straight face

"You are, aren't you?"

"I'll be back."

"Hermione..."

"It's just- There's too many people, and they make my back itch," Hermione said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she wanted to get the confession over with.

Ginny gave her a sharp glance. She knew how much Hermione hated admitting to any weaknesses, and this openness seemed slightly uncharacteristic.

"I need some time on my own and then I'll come back. Besides, you know loud parties aren't really my sort of thing," Hermione offered with a crooked smile. Something about it looked off, but Ginny couldn't put her finger on it.

"Not mine either, I think," Ginny admitted. "Maybe it was more fun planning it than having it."

"See you in a bit, then."

Ginny walked down the stairs, passing through the invisible barrier, and was hit by a wall of noise.

"You should've seen it, size of a house!"

"-was always a twat anyway-"

"Here, gi'us that! No point letting it go to waste-"

"Fancied him since school, but he was too thick-"

"You and your two left feet, Thomas!"

"What's 'bootylicious' supposed to mean, anyway?"

"Sister dear!" The last voice belonged to George, and it was rather closer than the rest. Ginny looked up straight into her brother's eyes, not missing the large bottle of tequila he was proudly brandishing. "Not a bad spread at all!"

"I learnt something from Mum, you know, even if I'm not sure she'd approve of all the drink. How's tricks?"

"Not bad. You?"

"OK," Ginny said.

He raised his eyebrows, looking for her to elaborate, but she had already revealed too much. George would have seen through any attempt to maintain that everything was just spiffing, in any case.

"It's a bit busier than I expected it'd be, is all." George looked like he didn't believe her. _'Sod him anyway',_ Ginny thought. "Have you seen Seamus?" she asked in an attempt to divert his attention.

"Finnegan? I thought he was in Australia?"

"He's back. He came back for Christmas."

"Good old Seamus," George said vaguely before clutching her shoulder in an iron grip, turning her around to face the same way as he did. At first, Ginny was at a loss as to what she was supposed to be looking at. Then she saw it: a head of white-blond hair, its colour as unmistakable as the rich red of blood flowing from open wounds.

"Malfoy! What the hell is he doing here?" she asked angrily, forgetting that if anyone ought know, it was her.

"Don't worry, I'll get rid of him right away," George said happily, pulling his wand out of his back pocket. At the back of her mind, Ginny was thinking that Mad-Eye Moody would have been furious with them for their lack of vigilance if he had been alive. Never mind George's buttocks, this was infinitely more serious.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," someone shouted at George's elbow. It turned out to be Luna, and both Ginny and George reluctantly paused to hear her out. "He could sue you for damages. I heard him telling Susan Bones when they arrived."

"So that's how he got here, the little bollocks!" Ginny was fuming. Susan had been in Auror training with Harry and Ron, so she knew very well that Susan tended to hex first and ask questions later. Malfoy, the smarmy git, had managed to get into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement through the same trainee program Hermione had signed up on to join the Department of Mysteries. It was entirely plausible he'd managed to get hold of some incriminating information about Susan and blackmailed her into bringing him to the party.

Not for the first time, Ginny wished someone would take Susan aside and teach her not to be so bloody blue-eyed about the ways of the world. At least Ginny would do her bit after this by refusing to talk to Susan for the foreseeable future.

Despite knowing that Luna was right and that the bastard must have foreseen they would try to get rid of him, Ginny considered going after Malfoy anyway. Most of the people in the house would swear blind nothing had happened and back up her story. However, she reluctantly realised Malfoy never would walk into a house full of Gryffindors without a backup plan. No doubt he would make it exceedingly difficult to toss him out.

Which made it imperative she found Harry before he saw Malfoy.

"Find Harry. Now!" she barked at George and Luna. Neither of them was slow on the uptake and they dispersed in different directions. Ginny took the dining room, angrily clearing a path through the crowd, ignoring any protestations from her guests. Having a fearsome reputation helped. No one was going to cause a fuss over having their drink spilt all over them when Ginevra Weasley was on the warpath.

Usually, the room was dominated by a table big enough to seat twenty. To the best of Ginny's knowledge, the last meal actually eaten at it had been in back in Mrs Black's day. After that, it had only been used for Order meethings. Tonight, it had been shrunk to make way for a makeshift dance floor. Working from the assumption that Harry was unlikely to be dancing to Muggle music (or any music, for that matter), Ginny quickly scanned the fringes of the room first.

Malfoy was standing by the window, looking nonchalant and demonstrating for all the world that he had a neck like a jockey's bollocks. Fortunately for him, there was no sign of Harry yet, and it didn't look like Ron had hexed him either.

She decided that her brother could probably be trusted to keep the situation under control for the time being, and decided that it was most important to find Harry. Quickly.

* * *

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Hermione demanded. She had been in the hall when he arrived with a shamefaced Susan Bones in tow, and she had latched on to him immediately. Draco Malfoy, pillock extraordinaire, in a house full of drunken former enemies was bad news and she wasn't going to let him wander loose, causing trouble at their party. Leisurely, he strolled through the drunken crowd, paying no heed to either Hermione or the occasional gasp when someone recognised him.

He didn't stop until he was in the dining room and she could finally corner him, wand at the ready.

"Celebrating the arrival of the new year, of course. Some of us don't keep our noses permanently glued to a book, Granger. You should try it some time," he drawled.

Hermione ignored his reply completely.

"If I were you, I'd get lost before Harry or Ginny see you. It's not like you to walk into the lion's den. Quite the opposite, in fact," she observed, trying to sound as contemptuous as he did.

"And miss out on the riveting drama occurring here? I think not. Why, only in the last few minutes I've learnt some very interesting facts about my fellow party-goers."

"Tell me, Malfoy, how does it feel to be so pathetic that you have to blackmail your way into parties?"

"I doubt you'd be here at all if you didn't live here, Granger. Available at short notice, are we? No boyfriend, no social life to speak of..."

That cut a little too close to the bone.

"You're missing a critical factor here, Malfoy. I, unlike you, actually have friends," she said through clenched teeth, making a supreme effort to sound dispassionate.

"He wouldn't know about that, you see," a mild voice said from about a foot above her. She twisted around and saw that Neville was standing next to her, helping her to form a far more efficient barrier between Malfoy and the rest of the room than she was capable of on her own. He also had his wand out, Hermione noticed, and she deliberately stepped on his foot while looking pointedly at his right hand.

"You'll need to be more direct than that, Granger. It's the Longbottom brain trust we're dealing with." Malfoy sounded amused.

Hermione had to exercise extreme control to prevent herself from hitting him with something nasty in the middle of that smug, pointed face.

"What's this?" another newcomer asked. "A ferret?" It was Alicia Spinnet, Hermione noticed with a groan. Alicia had a good heart but was somewhat prone to fly off the handle, especially where Malfoy was concerned. Someone cool and collected would be useful at this juncture, someone like...

"What the ruddy hell is that slimy little shit doing here?" Ron announced his arrival, his outstretched wand wobbling slightly. Hermione couldn't suppress her groan anymore.

"Ron, don't hex him. That's exactly what he wants," she quickly explained, hoping he didn't get around to trying the absinthe Lee Jordan had brought yet.

"Au contraire, Granger. I'm merely visiting the old ancestral home since the opportunity presented itself," Malfoy drawled, but her attention was focused on Ron and she paid him no mind.

Ron was staring fixedly at the smaller wizard, clutching his wand and seemingly weighing up his chances.

"Don't, Ron. He's not worth the hassle," Hermione added wearily, wondering how many times she'd said that over the years.

"You know I could make you walk straight out of here if I wanted, Malfoy," Ron said in a strangely calm voice.

"I'd like to see you try," Malfoy sneered in response, and Hermione tried to decide whether to focus her wand on him or Ron.

"I don't think so. Your little game won't pay off. You're not getting rid of the life debt you owe me so easily," Ron said, and Hermione could have kicked herself for not realising earlier what Malfoy's purpose was. Trust Ron to see through his strategy straight away, she thought wryly.

"Busted, Malfoy. Now make your way out like a good boy. Maybe there's even a party someplace where someone would actually be happy to see you. However unlikely that may seem," Hermione added spitefully. She hadn't forgotten his barb from earlier.

"Oh, but where would be the fun in that? This place is a regular human circus, full of entertainment. Anything from the inane," he nodded to Alicia Spinnet, "to the utmost human drama."

"You're inane, you prat!" Alicia retorted, having caught on to the idea that hexing Malfoy was a Bad Thing but not much else.

Hermione winced, and Malfoy didn't disappoint.

"You're not stupid, Granger, I'll give you that. Devoid of charm and so dry that only a bookshelf could love you, possibly, but at least you're not dim."

"If you think I care for your opinion, Malfoy, you're even less intelligent than I gave you credit for."

"There's no need - just look around you. Weasley clearly realised that if he wanted some sort of home life, he'd be better off with a Flobberworm than you. At least they don't nag."

"I can't help but noticing that you've even managed to lose Pansy, which brings your number of admirers to zero," Hermione retorted. She could feel her cheeks burning. It was a little more than a year ago that Ron and her had decided that it wasn't working, hadn't been working for quite some time, and very likely never would work between them again. Ron had started a string of short-lived romances and Hermione...

Well, Hermione rarely went out with anyone, and when she did it was extremely rare that the 'relationship' extended beyond the first date.

Most of the wizards she knew saw her as one of the guys: a walking, talking textbook who was great to have around but had no sex appeal whatsoever. The fact that she would actually use a word like 'sex appeal' just underlined the issue.

And now Draco Malfoy, damn him thrice to hell, was dragging up all her insecurities. In front of her ex-boyfriend and current crush, no less.

* * *

**The chapter titles are from Tennyson's poem ****_In Memoriam_**** (Ring out, wild bells).**


	2. Ring Out The Thousand Wars Of Old

**Thanks again to ScottPress for beta-ing! Any remaining mistakes are my own.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**Ring Out the Thousand Wars of Old**

**-oOo-**

Neville could see Hermione folding her arms, and didn't envy Malfoy right now. He'd seldom been on the receiving end of Hermione's wrath and wouldn't relish the prospect. _'Except that she'd notice you then,' _a little voice reminded him and he sighed inwardly. Chance would be a fine thing, indeed.

"I'll be alright, Granger. Thanks for your concern," Malfoy drawled in response to Hermione's jab about even Pansy having deserted him. "It helps not having a stick lodged permanently up your arse. You should try it sometime - maybe you'd get lucky then."

"Tell me, do you have mirrors in Malfoy Manor?" Hermione asked sweetly. "Because if I woke up to your face every morning, I'm not sure I'd even bother getting out of bed."

"Piece of advice, Granger. You could at least make a token attempt to tame that bush of yours before heading to the Ministry in the morning. No need to advertise that you haven't been within an ass's roar of getting laid since Weasley ditched you."

"Fortunately for me, I don't need to rely on a pretty face. Where does that leave you, Malfoy?"

The others were just watching them. There didn't seem to be any way of getting a word in edgewise even if they'd wanted to. Neville was keeping a discreet watch out of the corner of his eye, and he'd seen that Ron was doing the same. The last thing they wanted was for someone else to barge in and start throwing hexes.

"You know, I don't even have to wonder what you'll be like in thirty years. All I have to do is to picture McGonagall with bad hair. Except there's a rumour she had a sweetheart," he sneered at the term, "once, and that's more than you managed. Exhibit A here hardly counts, since he cheated on you behind your back, didn't he?" he continued, gesticulating at Ron, who seemed to freeze with his mouth hanging half-open.

_'Say something,' _Neville willed Ron. Surely he couldn't have? One look at Malfoy's gleeful face and Hermione's strange lack of comeback sufficed to convince Neville that Ron had indeed cheated. Despite the chatter around them and the music from the room next door, a tight and uncomfortable little silence hung between them before Malfoy went in for the kill.

"You're handy to have around when they need something, Granger, but surely you never expected anything other than that?"

Without a word, Hermione spun around and walked away. The lights in the room flickered as she pushed her way through the crowd, and Neville could feel his hair rise from the magic crackling in the air.

There were many things he wanted to do. Hexing Malfoy to within an inch of his life was the easiest. Running after Hermione or making Ron tell him exactly what he had done behind her back soon rose to the top of the list. With patience borne of long practice, Neville chose neither. Instead he continued his vigil, fully cognisant of the fact that either of them could be next in line for Malfoy to attack.

"And you, Longbottom. It's reaching new levels of pathetic to be mooning after that, only to have the pitiful object of your affections pretending not to notice," Malfoy said and Neville turned red.

He looked Malfoy steadily in the eyes, ignoring the surprised looks he was getting from Alicia and Ron. _'Don't tell them, don't tell them, don't tell them'_, he thought, trying to stay completely immobile. Something must have betrayed him, though, or Malfoy had just been ready to pounce in any case. Probably the latter. When had Malfoy ever held back from causing as much damage as possible with his slurs?

"Let's consider it, shall we?" Malfoy continued with an air of unholy glee about him.

Neville felt the familiar hatred burn in his stomach. It had been a long time since he had started hating more substantial evil than the petty malice of Draco Malfoy, but he still remembered what Malfoy's words felt like. They could eat their way under your skin, and the knowledge that the boy throwing them in your face was so shallow that he'd stoop to anything was not the least of the hurt they caused.

It almost physically hurt Neville to know that Malfoy still hadn't learnt anything. So many people had died, and here he was: still the twelve-year-old bully. And he still knew exactly where Neville's weak spots were.

"I've barely spent any time with you since our last glorious year at Hogwarts, and yet it's patently obvious to me and anyone else with two braincells to rub together that you're pathetically infatuated with Granger. Merlin knows why." Malfoy added as he shuddered delicately. "I will concede that Granger does possess above average intelligence. Given that Weasley here is included in the average, it's hardly a ringing endorsement. Yet, there it is."

Somewhere faraway, Neville desperately wished Ron would close his bloody mouth. When he wanted to Ron could be brilliant, but Malfoy seemed to have a talent for bringing out the worst in people.

"Now, Longbottom. Do you honestly think it would have escaped Granger that you're infatuated with her? You surpassed pathetic weeks ago, by my reckoning. Did you really think she hadn't noticed?" For a moment, he managed to look pitying, even while he was sneering.

"Don't listen to him, mate!" Ron finally managed to shake himself out of his stupor. Malfoy only tut-tutted under his breath, not breaking eye contact with Neville.

"I'd disregard the village idiot if I were you," he advised Neville, sounding almost friendly. "Clearly he has no grasp of what's going on. After all, this doesn't involve a Quaffle."

Neville knew it was true: he just knew it. If Voldemort had made a reappearance tonight he would have rejoiced. He would do anything, as long as it meant that he didn't have to listen to Malfoy uncovering every secret of his heart to be sneered at.

He didn't expect Hermione to see him as anything other than good old Neville; he was well aware that he could have no expectations. But to know that she would have seen everything, his carefully hidden secret, stripping him so bare before her eyes...

But Malfoy wasn't finished, and Neville found strength he didn't know he had, forcing himself to remain immobile, face smooth and unfazed. This was nothing compared to the Carrows, nothing at all, and yet-

"I'd just advise you to remember this: Granger preferred to walk away from me rather than throwing the fact that you're acting like a lovesick puppy around her back in my face."

In a neighbouring universe, Neville pulled out his wand and rearranged Malfoy's face until he couldn't sneer anymore. Neville clung to the image, savouring it; it was the only thing that stopped him from actually doing it here and now.

No, not the only thing.

Hermione had walked out. For the first time since Neville could remember, she had let Malfoy get the better of her. Which meant that Malfoy must be right about everything he'd said. And Neville knew precisely why she hadn't acknowledged his painfully obvious infatuation with a single word: Hermione Granger didn't throw her friends to the wolves.

"Still, nil desperandum. I heard Aberforth Dumbledore's goat died; now there's someone who'd consider you quite the catch," Malfoy added cheerfully, and Neville wondered how long you'd get in Azkaban for strangulation.

* * *

Ginny reluctantly decided to let Ron and Neville handle Malfoy, at least until she could find Harry. They still seemed to be talking and she hadn't seen any hexes thrown, so even though her back was crawling with discomfort she resolutely turned away from the odd group.

Luna took the breakfast room and George the library, so that left the basement. The kitchen was exactly as she left it, packed to the rafters with noise and people. It was odd to see Parvati kissing someone enthusiastically, right where Hermione usually put the recycling. From behind it looked a lot like Rhys Urquhart, and Ginny was momentarily distracted. Well done, Parvati! Six foot two solid Quidditch muscle, and he actually had some brains too. It probably took a Slytherin to rise to the top as a Keeper, not relying on brawn alone.

Ginny was about to give up on Harry, scanning the room one last time, when she spotted him. He was wedged in between Hannah Abbott and Justin Finch-Fletchley, and all three of them were laughing helplessly. Their goblets were hanging from limp hands, liberally spraying the floor with the contents, and Harry was only holding himself up by hanging onto the wall. Hannah had almost folded in two, and even Justin looked more dishevelled than his usual starched self .

Malfoy had no right to ruin Harry's New Year's Eve, Ginny thought suddenly. Her previous anger dimmed in comparison to this new wave of fury, which made her clench her fists and her mouth go dry. Harry had been on call for all of Christmas; they had barely sat down for Christmas dinner at the Burrow when he had been summoned to Aberystwyth for a domestic.

She knew that he'd been looking forward to tonight for weeks, ever since he stopped worrying about letting all those people into the house and started to enjoy throwing his first ever party.

The crates of Heineken surrounding them were testament to his enthusiasm. Harry was bewildered by the failure of most of his friends to realise that Muggle beer was far superior, and had resolved to spread the word tonight. Judging by the industrial quantities of bottles still remaining, most guests had decided to stick to the tried and tested.

"Harry..." Ginny said tentatively. He didn't hear her. Hannah looked up and spotted her, but had no breath left. It was a bad idea to sneak up on Harry Potter from behind, so Ginny knocked two empty beer bottles together as she shoved her hip into the side table. It seemed to do the trick.

"Ginny!" Harry lit up in a wide smile, and the corners of her mouth briefly quirked upwards on their own accord. "What's up?" he asked in a completely different tone of voice, after seeing her expression. Wordlessly, she jerked her head, and he followed her into the dank cellar off the main kitchen. The door clicked shut, dimming the deafening sound of voices from the kitchen.

Harry didn't ask what was going on again. Instead he looked at her, waiting for her to speak. Ginny really wished he wouldn't bring his bloody Auror techniques for questioning suspects home with him.

"Don't worry, it's under control," she started, knowing that there was no chance he'd listen to her. "Malfoy managed to sneak in, using someone else's invite." Harry had his wand out so quickly it was only a blur in the corner of her eye.

"Where?" he demanded, his voice calm and even.

"Never you mind. It's grand. There's no need for you to get involved."

"Ginny-"

"He'll sue, Harry! It's only a month since the _Daily Prophet_ broke that story about Proudfoot. The last thing you need is to get in trouble with work over something stupid like this."

Auror Proudfoot had been photographed repeatedly assaulting a member of the public who only had wanted to ask her what time it was. The Auror Office was part of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which nowadays prided itself on its 'community outreach' and 'soft-touch policing'. The scandal had not gone down well, and the Aurors had been warned to toe the line or face the consequences. Malfoy may be a known Death Eater, but he still had the ear of the editor of the _Daily Prophet_, and any story involving Harry even tangentially would cause exactly the type of furore the Ministry was keen to avoid.

"He's in our home!" Harry was so furious that his voice almost cracked on the last word, and Ginny made sure she was blocking his path to the door as she wrapped her arms around him.

"I know, Harry. I know. I don't like any better than you do, but you have to let the others take care of it," she said, slightly irritated that Harry seemed to have forgotten that this was her home too, now.

"Who's taking care of it?" he demanded.

"Hermione, Ron and Neville. And Alicia Spinnet."

"Good thing Alicia's there, or we would've been in real trouble," Harry muttered, but he looked a smidgen less tense. "So what are we supposed to be doing while Malfoy is crashing our party?"

"I suppose having fun is out of the question?"

"Can I at least turn him into a ferret or something? That would be festive," Harry suggested.

"No. You should just go back to Hannah and Justin," Ginny suggested.

"What about you?"

Ginny didn't want to go back to the party just yet - her magic was all over the place. Now that the frantic search to find Harry was over, she wasn't so sure that she'd resist the temptation to sling a hex at Malfoy if she got a chance.

"I need to get some more Butterbeer. Someone's started mixing it with Muggle vodka, and there's barely any left out there."

"Want a hand?" Harry offered.

"No, I'll just Levitate them out. You go back."

When she finally heard the door closing behind Harry, Ginny slid down against the wall until she was sitting on the cold, damp flagstones. It didn't take a genius to see that being angry at Malfoy was her way of avoiding being angry at herself. Wrecking Harry's New Year's Eve was trivial under the circumstances.

Everything has a price, as Auntie Muriel was fond of saying. Faced with a dilemma as old as time, Ginny wondered what price she would end up paying for a botched charm. There was no question what Harry would do. She couldn't imagine a world where he would leave her to fend for herself. Ron or Seamus might end up doing something stupid in the heat of the moment, but not Harry. Never Harry.

That wasn't what she was concerned about.

Her family would probably say that she was making a big fuss about nothing. Harry had always loved the Burrow and the hustle and bustle of all nine- eight of them. Only eight, now, except in her good dreams where they all were young and shining and whole.

Ever since the first time he set his foot in their ramshackle, ridiculous house, you could see that he would have given almost anything to be part of a family. To the casual observer, it would seem perfectly logical that Harry would be anxious to start producing his own brood sooner rather than later.

To his girlfriend, however, he hadn't betrayed any desire to do so. Hell, they had only moved in together a few months ago. They were still finding their way together, getting the hang of the business of being an adult and having a proper relationship.

Ginny had seen far too many wartime romances fizzle and burn: Ron and Hermione, Susan and Seamus, Neville and Hannah, Luna and Justin, Seamus and Tracey, George and Padma, Cho and Seamus and Parvati...

It had been a heady thing to be alive and victorious, and they weren't exactly whole, most of them. It was easier to be consumed by love than lie awake alone at night, remembering the pale faces of people you used to know, dying in front of you over and over again.

Playing at love had never been enough for Ginny. She had waited so long to have something real with this man, and she would be damned if she let it slip between her fingers now. It had taken time and a sort of courage she hadn't known she had, but together they had carved out a way to be Harry and Ginny on the other side of the war.

Only then had they started thinking of living together. It hadn't helped that it almost took Ginny two years after the war to sit her N.E.W.T.s. Only pure bloody-mindedness had made her stick it out. That, and knowing that Hermione was actually right, with her harping on about the importance of being able to stand on your own two feet no matter what happened.

Ginny's parents obviously hadn't been happy at the prospect of their only daughter shacking up with Harry in Grimmauld Place. Instead of pitching a fit, they had gently made it known that they would vastly prefer if someone else lived there with them too, while wisely refraining from insisting on anything. Once Hermione had agreed to move in they had become a lot more enthusiastic.

A few months later, the irony of all this wasn't lost on Ginny. It was, however, overshadowed by the larger issue at stake. There weren't enough words in the English language to describe how stupid it was for Molly Weasley's daughter not to have taken sufficient precautions.

Ginny's love for Harry had nothing to do with the simple hero worship of her youth. It was a darker love now, with all the fire and passion she had in her. She would kill for him; she had fought a war for him. Not for Dumbledore, not for the Light, whatever that was: for him, and for her family.

Anything Harry truly wanted in this world, Ginny wanted him to have it.

She knew most things there were to know about Harry Potter, and one of them was that all too often he hadn't been given a choice. Too many things had been imposed on him against his will, and Ginny had promised herself to do anything to make sure he always had choices from now on.

Well, there was a sudden dearth of choices to be had; she would have to tell Harry what was going on very soon. Falling to pieces like this did not help at all.

Ginny despised people who couldn't deal with their own problems, and she bloody well hated the way her feelings seemed to be all over the place these days. It was the bloody hormones, no doubt.

Before she could bottle it all up again, one giant sob escaped and in retaliation against her stupid feelings she let off a vicious kick that almost dislodged the door to the wine cellar. At some stage of his tenure during the war it had been emptied by Sirius, and now it mostly housed spiders.

"Love?" Harry's voice came from only a few feet away, and Ginny was suddenly standing up with her back against the wall, her wand out and her heart somewhere in the vicinity of her tonsils. All the blood in her head seemed to decide to take a trip to her feet at the same time, and she had to steady herself against the wall to combat the dizziness.

"Harry?"

"Yes. Sorry."

"If you ever do that to me again, you'll be eating with a spoon until next Christmas," she said, in the same tone of voice her mother would use if she ever discovered what her dad had done to Hermione's parents' old hoover in the shed.


	3. Ring In the Valiant Man

**Again, thanks to ScottPress for all his help and feedback! **

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**Chapter 3 **

**Ring In the Valiant Man**

**-oOo-**

For a very long time, Neville had cared more about Hannah Abbott than he did about anyone else in the world.

When there had been nothing else to rely on she had been there. Fragile but unbending, she had simply shoved her weaknesses aside when they had stood in her way. Hannah had been petrified that whole year at Hogwarts, but she had still fought on until there had seemed to be no hope left.

Neville knew now why he had been sorted in Gryffindor: somewhere beneath his unassuming exterior lurked a flair for the dramatic, a love for the beau geste, and he knew in his bones that he was the sort of man who would never yield, never surrender. When push came to shove Neville would stand on the barricade until the bitter end, and that was that.

Hannah, on the other hand, had endured the war despite herself, and when the grime of battle had been washed away she still believed in the goodwill of men, long after reasonable doubt would have set in for most people.

For the longest time, she was everything he wanted.

Eventually, Hannah had realised that the fact that Neville had been irrevocably altered by the war while she hadn't wasn't the glue that would keep them together, but the opposite.

After a drawn-out farewell, it had come as a bit of a surprise for Neville to find that his heart wasn't as broken as he had expected. Somehow, it was enough to know that someone like Hannah still existed in the world; a talisman against the dreariness and despair of war.

It wasn't until Neville came back to England after a year abroad that Hermione Granger entered his orbit again, and admiring someone from a distance took on an entirely different meaning.

You couldn't help watching Hermione. Even Malfoy couldn't, even though he despised everything about her. She ploughed straight through life, not bothering taking the easy way around things like other people. Unapologetically, she dismissed everything she didn't deem important enough to worry about. Like appearances, or Quidditch. Neville disagreed with Hermione there, but he admired her focus. What remained after the fripperies had been stripped away received the benefit of her relentless attention.

At Hogwarts she had seemed overbearing at times, and Neville had even been slightly afraid of her, despite knowing that she would stand with her friends to the hilt. After the war, he ceased to be unnerved by her intensity. There were worse things in the world, and you could trust Hermione to get the big things right.

Sometimes, he wondered if she would end up like Dumbledore, pulling strings a century from now.

Quite how Neville had gone from watching her shining bright among the greyness that had descended upon the world after the end of the war to mooning after her like a lovesick first year still wasn't quite clear to him. All he knew was that it must have started in Grimmauld Place.

Just after the war, his head had been full of Hannah and nameless shadows. The shadows had subsided and the dreams with headless, writhing snakes had stopped around the same time as they had sat their N.E.W.T.s.

After the break-up with Hannah, Neville had joined Seamus in Australia for a year of travelling. Being on his own, away from Britain and the War and mostly everyone he had ever known had been a surprisingly pleasant experience. He wasn't naturally outgoing, like Seamus, who only had lived in Australia for a year when Neville arrived but seemed to have been born there.

On the day he arrived, as soon as Neville had recovered his equilibrium and the nausea from the International Portkey had passed, Seamus grabbed his arm and marched him to his local pub. It was dingy, full of Muggles and seemed to be populated entirely by long-lost friends of Seamus'. He slammed a pint of something disgusting in front of Neville - who didn't even like English ale and found the Australian draught revolting - and proceeded to throw an impromptu welcome party for his friend which had culminated in a conga line down the street at two o'clock in the morning.

Neville hadn't realised that people actually did that sort of thing before. Especially not while singing _'The Fields of Athenry'_.

Where Seamus went people joined in, even if it often was to find out if he'd actually go through with it. Neville, too - to his surprise, he took to being young and carefree like a duck to water. He reluctantly returned to Britain when his time was up, knowing that his Gran wasn't getting any younger and that his future laid there, but it was almost as if the year away had made him younger and not older.

When he came back, he had to get used to living in the fishbowl world of wizarding Britain again. In Neville's experience, Muggle-borns usually didn't realise that one of the major advantages of having no family ties to the wizarding world was that people generally got to know you as an adult. If you were from an old pure-blood family, you bought your quills from a shopkeeper who was an old friend of your Gran's, stumbled over your least favourite cousin on the way to Gringotts and inevitably ran into your dottiest uncle when you tried to get drinks for what you very much hoped was a date at the Leaky Cauldron.

Neville was trying to explain all this to Hermione at the kitchen table in Grimmauld Place one of the first nights he was back in England.

Enjoying the taste of proper stout, surrounded by an array of Weasleys, Dean proudly wearing the cork hat won after a protracted battle with Ginny and Luna, and a slightly drunk Harry, Neville tried to put words to why walking down Diagon Alley earlier that day had been more claustrophobic than anything else.

When Hermione laughed until she had wine coming out of her nostrils at his rendition of what happened at the quill-maker's when he was five, Neville realised that he hadn't seen her so full of light for a long time. Not since they were children. It was the first time he looked at her, really looked, as an adult.

Lifting his head, he let his gaze wander around the kitchen and used his long absence to see them all with fresh eyes.

Harry, laughing with Ron at something, his suddenly broad shoulders relaxing in a way that somehow reminded Neville of Remus Lupin and made his heart clench painfully. Harry's eyes had always looked too old for his face; now, the rest of his body seemed to have caught up.

Ginny, who Neville knew as well as you could know anyone in this world, had her arm slung around Harry's waist as she was making half-hearted attempts to kick Ron, who was snickering at her. She still had scars from the Carrows on her back and Neville knew she'd never forget the feeling of having Tom Riddle in her head, but now she seemed to be shining from the inside. Neville suddenly thought of Seamus, with his inexhaustible repertoire of pub songs and the crinkles around his eyes that showed up in the bright Australian sun, and all the rest of them.

Suddenly, he had to blink away the tears that had swelled in his eyes without him noticing.

They had done it; Dumbledore's Army had pulled through, and even if some hadn't made it all the way the rest of them would make sure to live the very best way they could, to make up for it somehow.

Hermione was still laughing and didn't notice Neville's tremulous smile or that his eyes were rather glassy, but on the other side of the kitchen table Luna caught his eye and smiled as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

After that night, it took a few days for Neville to get used to his friends again before the strange feeling of seeing them from the outside wore off. He wasn't a terribly observant person normally, anyway. Soon enough, black hair and glasses appearing slightly below his eye level just meant that Harry was in the room, with none of the echoes of love and loss and resignation he'd seen before.

While the sensation of observing his life from the outside lasted, however, Neville found out that he quite liked watching Hermione while she was working.

She would spread out her things out at one end of the kitchen table: three quills neatly laid out in front of her, reference books on her right side and spare parchment on the left. Her routine had always been the same, ever since Hogwarts. Hermione must have picked up supernatural powers of concentration somewhere along the way (probably in the Gryffindor common room), because she seemed unperturbed even while pandemonium was raging at the other end of the table. Even on the memorable occasion when an impromptu Quidditch match had taken place inside the house.

When Hermione was deep in thought, she would purse her lips or run fingers through her hair in frustration, until it reminded Neville of a spider plant with tendrils standing out in all directions.

Watching her made him feel that he was home, in a way that even the drab English weather couldn't manage. So many things had changed irreversibly; seeing Hermione Granger acting like a complete swot helped him feel that some of the things he cared the most about were still the same.

Due to some complicated arrangement Neville wasn't privy to, Hermione had moved into Grimmauld Place when she and Ron broke up. Apparently, the fact that she was living there was sufficient to reconcile Mr and Mrs Weasley to their only daughter living in the same house as her fiancé. It seemed a bit strange to Neville, since Ron and Hermione had been sharing a flat since Hermione had sat her NEWTs, but he wisely refrained from bringing it up. He was quite familiar with the intensity of Weasley family scrabbles and was not going to put his foot in it again.

As it was, Neville saw quite a bit of Hermione, since he too spent most of his time in Grimmauld Place after returning to Britain.

It would have been impossible to justify getting his own flat when his Gran had an enormous, echoing mansion at her disposal. Since Harry had made it very clear that Neville should regard Grimmauld Place as his London residence in the same way as so many of their friends did, it was easy to stay there instead. Particularly as it was Harry Potter's house, and his Gran would forgive Harry things she wouldn't let anyone else get away with.

Neville didn't want to disappoint her, but he also wasn't very keen on going completely bonkers rattling around in her place. Staying in Grimmauld Place seemed to be as good a solution as any.

Life at Grimmauld Place wasn't like being back at Hogwarts - that would have been eerie, and probably not very healthy. Luna had taken up Muggle psychology, and Neville picked up some of the basics after leafing through the textbooks she'd blithely left next to the growling Grimoires in the Black library. No, this was much better than Hogwarts, even if Harry and Ginny forgot the Silencing Charms sometimes, leading to a rather strained atmosphere at breakfast the following day.

As you would expect, there was a fair amount of arguments: Ginny was a terrible slob, and Hermione never, ever threw her tea bags into the actual bin, leaving them to sit next to the sink like defeated-looking slow-drying brown blobs. Harry could be so damn reasonable that even Neville took issue with him, and most of their friends seemed to have an irrational aversion to picking up after themselves when they came to stay.

Kreacher was getting old and it wasn't fair to expect him to do everything, as Ron was fond of sanctimoniously reminding them when he was over. The impact of his lecture was lessened somewhat by the beer bottles they inevitably discovered in odd locations after his visits. Apparently, Ron was all for house-elf rights except when it came to cleaning up his own mess – then he was suddenly a lot less liberal.

Neville had never been to Grimmauld Place when it was the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, but he had heard all the stories. This house had become his home with the same ease he felt when slipping into his favourite jumper with all the Butober pus stains.

It seemed inconceivable that it had ever been such a dark place, as it filled up with friends and noise and affection.

Slowly, as the leaves in the square outside turned into brilliant yellow and red against the bright autumn skies, the way Neville was watching Hermione changed. At first, he looked at her for reassurance, the same way as he'd look at his watch when he knew he was on time, just to be sure.

The two of them were the only inhabitants of Grimmauld Place keeping office hours. They got into the habit of converging in the kitchen after work for some tea and biscuits, to keep going until dinner. Usually, it was obvious to Neville what sort of mood Hermione was in.

If she hoisted her book bag up on one of the chairs with a huff, it had been a bad day.

On good days, she would flit around the kitchen, full of energy. During her last months at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, the bad days vastly outnumbered the good ones.

It was on one of the bad days, hearing her mutter her umpteenth litany against Cuthbert Mockridge and his thrice damned incompetency, that Neville started to try to coax a smile out of her. Just one smile, and then she could go back to her ranting. It had to be a real smile, though. If he didn't see the corners of her eyes break up into a little fan of crinkles, it didn't count.

It had worked a little too well, he realised about a month later. It wasn't about escaping another diatribe on the prejudices of her superior anymore. No, somewhere along the way, the moment Hermione couldn't fight it any longer and broke out in a fully-fledged smile had become the highlight of his day.

Usually this was accomplished with stories about Neville's own superior, Thistlethwaite, who regarded anything invented in the twentieth century as new-fangled nonsense and approached anything from the twenty-first with the same enthusiasm as Voldemort had embraced his Muggle heritage. The day Neville brought his MP3 player to the gardens in a fit of misplaced nonchalance had supplied him with enough stories to entertain Hermione for a week.

When she finally got a transfer to the Department of Mysteries and started coming home tight-lipped and brimful of surprised excitement, it was already too late for Neville.

He kept it to himself, acutely aware that his friends were Hermione's friends too, and hardly the most discreet bunch. The last thing he wanted was to make things weird. All he asked for were those quiet hours at the kitchen table, reading and talking and drinking tea, and that she would smile at him.

He never expected her to return his feelings. Why would she? She was utterly brilliant and could do anything, have anyone - Neville Longbottom was far too pedestrian for Hermione Granger.

He knew that he was a worthy man, if a bit ragged along the edges; that year at Hogwarts had taught him a lot. Finally, he believed that he deserved to be what he was: a wizard, a Gryffindor, a man at war. If not him, who then? There had no longer been any heroes to tell him what to do, no Harry or Dumbledore to follow. There had only been Neville, and he had made his peace with who he was. He knew it in his bones, now. Not even Draco Malfoy could rock his belief in himself. Hell, he had faced Voldemort: he didn't fear Malfoy.

Nevertheless, you would have had to be a stronger man than Neville to feel nothing as Malfoy laid out all his little secrets for everyone to see. Malfoy couldn't hurt him much, but his friends could. Ron was looking at him now with his mouth hanging open, and Neville cursed Malfoy to hell and back.

That wasn't even the worst of it: Hermione, defender of the oppressed and self-proclaimed protector of everyone who couldn't fight for themselves, knew his secret. Neville couldn't stand the thought that she would pity him – all he had was their easy friendship, but if she felt sorry for him even that would be tainted.

Forget about his apprenticeship at Kew Gardens: he could catch a last minute International Portkey to Australia in the morning. Neville mentally totted up the funds in his vault at Gringotts, deciding that he could crash at Lucy's for a while, and if he sold his spare wand-

His shoulders sank even as he was considering it. He couldn't run away. It would make it even worse, and he did actually have some dignity. At least he was no stranger to humiliation; all those times he had botched a spell or fell over his own two feet would certainly come in handy now as practice.

Apparently, Malfoy decided to twist the knife further when Neville didn't reply to his latest gibe about goats and Aberforth Dumbledore.

"Cat got your tongue, Longbottom? I forgot you never were the sharpest knife in the drawer, were you?" he drawled, and his voice grated on Neville's ears like nails on a blackboard.

"Sod off, Malfoy. Who cares what you think, anyway," he said tiredly. Somehow, that seemed to take Malfoy aback; it was probably the apathy in Neville's voice. Malfoy always went for the jugular, just like his aunt. It was no fun at all if the target didn't rise to the bait, and they could always tell if you were just pretending not to care.

"No one wants you here, Malfoy. You can just fuck off back to where you came from," Alicia Spinnet piped up, everything that went on before clearly having gone straight over her head.

Suddenly, it occurred to Neville that Ron had been uncharacteristically quiet through all of this.

Sneaking a quick look to his left, he saw an intent expression on Ron's face, at odds with the situation at hand. Neville recognised it; that was the way Ron looked when he was playing chess, just before making the move you later realised won him the game.


	4. The Larger Heart, the Kindlier Hand

**ScottPress's version of Harry probably would have ejected Draco Malfoy with a dropkick long before now. Nevertheless, he kindly beta'd this very different story, for which I'm very grateful! **

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**Chapter 4 **

**The Larger Heart, the Kindlier Hand**

**-oOo-**

Off-duty Aurors were never thin on the ground at Grimmauld Place. If you weren't too fussed about their relative level of sobriety, there were probably at least ten interspersed in the crowd downstairs tonight.

This was absolutely no help to Hermione. What she needed was sober and official, which could only be procured by a Floo call to Headquarters.

Curiously, it had turned out that spending a weekend learning the Auror Office employee handbook forwards and backwards had indeed been a productive use of her time. Even if you disregarded the original purpose, which had been getting Ron off disciplinary charges. He had actually been completely innocent for once, but for some obscure reason Williamson hated his guts. If it hadn't been for Hermione, Ron would have had his arse handed to him - according to Ron anyway.

The story had spread like wildfire among the recruits in the Auror Office, so rare was it that anyone got one over Williamson. By the time the two year training program Ron and Harry had joined was finished, Hermione was owed enough favours to get away with larceny at the very least.

Now it was time to call one in, so she went straight to the drawing room on the first floor, which was out of bounds to the guests. When she was finished, she evaded Ginny on the landing, making as little conversation as possible, until she finally reached her room.

Hermione had locked and warded the door before realising that she ought to have brought a bottle of something strong with her from the kitchen. It was too late to summon one now - she'd have to do this the good old way instead, stone cold sober.

"AAAAHHHHH! INSUFFERABLE LITTLE PRICK! GAAAAAAHH!"

It had started on the Horcrux hunt, after Ron had walked out.

One night, she just couldn't stand it anymore: the cold and the hunger and the hopelessness, all compressed between the walls of the tent that seemed to be closing in to crush them. She had actually screamed out loud in frustration with it all, one long shriek without any words. Poor Harry had fallen off his chair, before joining in.

What else was there to do? Gods knew he knew exactly what she was feeling.

They had looked at each other afterwards, and out of nowhere Hermione had started to giggle. Harry had followed suit until they were choking with laughter, and the ceiling hadn't seem as low and oppressing after that.

In both the wizarding and Muggle world, screaming to yourself was regarded as a step on the way that ended with hearing voices no one else heard, so she didn't do it very often anymore. Malfoy reappearing in her life like a bad smell thoroughly warranted a good scream, however.

Once the anger was out, Hermione deflated somewhat.

Malfoy had mostly been right, in that maggoty, lard-infested, contemptible way of his, except that Ron cheating on her wasn't as bad as Malfoy made it sound. In Hermione's opinion, it wasn't really cheating, not when both parties had given up on the relationship but were too damn stubborn to call an end to it. She didn't blame Ron for ending up in bed with someone else on a drunken night out. It would have been neater all around if he could have waited a few weeks so they could have announced that they had broken up first, but they had wanted to wait until Percy's engagement party was over and done with. In retrospect, that was a rather stupid decision. They had ended up all over the papers and the _Daily Prophet_ still referred to Ron as 'The Adulterer', with capitals and all.

Hermione did blame Ron, somewhat, for clinging on to their relationship once it had been clear to both of them that they were boring each other silly, but she had been equally at fault; that was where the crux laid.

Malfoy obviously had no idea of what it was like to have real friends: how could he? Hermione didn't believe for a second that her friends only kept her around for her ability to dig them out of scrapes; that particular insecurity had vanished with the Horcruxes. However, Malfoy had unfortunately hit the nail on the head when it came to her love life.

Since it spectacularly imploded with Ron, she had signally failed even at the prospect of a relationship, much less an actual one.

It had been mortifying to realise that most blokes who asked her out believed everything they read about her in the papers.

Hermione Granger, war hero, wrote cheques that Hermione Granger, bureaucrat who liked to do research in her spare time, simply couldn't cash. Having survived the war, Hermione was perfectly happy to do pedestrian things like working, inventing new spells and spending time with her friends.

This seemed to take people by surprise, especially if they had read Rita Skeeter's book _The Golden Trio and The Year On The Run_. As Hermione had explained to Adrian Pucey when he tried to take her bungee-jumping in the Glasfynydd dragon reserve, it was the greatest work of fiction since Tame Your Basilisk In Five Easy Steps. He hadn't laughed, and Hermione ended up spending another Saturday night down at the local pub with Harry and the Weasleys.

It wasn't for lack of wanting to have a proper relationship - she just couldn't seem to get the hang of the whole messy business of going out with someone. Maybe it was because she had been memorising the twelve uses of dragon blood when her contemporaries had been busy figuring out all this stuff.

It probably hadn't help that all she had been able to see for years was Ron. Right up until she realised that it had been the idea of Ron she had been enchanted with, rather than who he actually was.

Once that had finally become clear, the extremely delicate task of untangling their relationship with minimal fallout became Hermione's chief preoccupation for months. Remaining on friendly terms with Mrs Weasley afterwards was her crowning glory; she could probably have joined the Diplomatic Service afterwards, if she had wanted to.

Through all that, the only thing that sustained her was imagining the absolute train wreck of a disaster that would have ensued if they actually had gone through with it and got married.

Hermione told herself that it was entirely natural to be hesitant, after living through all that. Ginny had told her the same only last week, adding that her idiot brother shouldn't be seen as the yardstick for anything. These last few weeks Ginny had been very short-tempered, Hermione reflected, but she didn't have enough mental energy to figure out why. The dismal state of her own love life was plenty to be getting on with, thank you very much.

Frankly, Hermione was beginning to fear that she just wasn't cut out for relationships. She seemed to have got the hang of friendship after a slow start, but as her only romantic experiences to date had been hopelessly intermingled with what turned out to mostly have been platonic affection, she was concerned.

It really didn't help that most books on the subject appeared to have been written by complete imbeciles.

Despite Malfoy hadn't managed to drive her away by bringing up her inadequacies. He probably wasn't even aware of which particular twist of the knife had achieved the desired result. Hermione devoutly hoped that was the case for the spectators, too; if Alicia Spinnet's IQ was five points lower she'd need to be watered daily, so Hermione wasn't concerned about her, but Neville...

And Ron, she belatedly realised. Ron would probably be able to piece things together now, since he knew mostly everything there was to know about her. There wasn't anything she could do about that, so she decided that it didn't matter so much what Ron thought - she had bigger things to worry about. Namely, what finally had let Malfoy's self-satisfied, pompous smirk carry the day and drive her away. What exactly was it he said, again?

'You're handy to have around when they need something, Granger, but surely you never expected anything other than that?'

Malfoy was wrong in that she wasn't some disembodied brain, kept on stand-by until needed by her less cerebral friends. He was right, in that if anyone had ever been stuck as 'just one of the guys', an asexual figure with no discernible gender identity to the object of her affection, it was Hermione Granger.

For a long time, the fact that it seemed to have escaped her male friends that she was of the opposite gender had remained an academic concern. She had no particular wish to snog Seamus Finnigan and Lee Jordan was a little too short and stocky for her taste, to mention but two.

Hermione knew she wasn't exactly Marilyn Monroe. She wasn't even Ginny Weasley, who still had her admirers despite having been going out with Harry, the saviour of the wizarding world, for years.

Nevertheless, Hermione wasn't exactly disfigured, and outside her circle her admittedly average looks didn't seem to put off prospective boyfriends. Her friends seemed to like her personality well enough, and didn't labour under the misapprehension that she considered a life without the spice of imminent danger worth living.

Yet, as far as the former members of Dumbledore's Army were concerned, Hermione could as well be a house-elf for all the amorous attention she attracted. In the unlikely event that the proceedings this evening would culminate in an orgy, Hermione was convinced that she would end up holding the participants' wands (their actual wands, of course) while everyone else was happily fornicating.

It still wasn't entirely clear to her how she had gone from a state of detached acceptance of just being one of the guys to letting Malfoy (Malfoy!) get the better of her over it.

All she could be certain of was that it started with Neville's hands.

Sitting in the kitchen at Grimmauld, cradling a cup of tea to get some heat into her frozen fingers, her gaze had landed at Neville's hands. They were busy trying to smooth out his crumbled-up notes, jotted down while watching Mr Thistlethwaite planting carnivorous dahlias.

His hands were big, and solid, and had been worn smooth and brown by sun and gardening work. Yet, as Neville meticulously affixed a sad-looking bud with tiny, withered fangs to the parchment, they were so very gentle. It made Hermione wonder what it would be like to feel hands like these against her skin-

Where had that come from? She promptly turned bright red, and pretended to be very busy with her own notes from the Department to hide her blushing face. Fortunately, Neville was entirely focused on his dahlias and didn't notice anything amiss.

After that Thursday afternoon, Hermione couldn't stop herself from sneaking a glance at Neville's hands every time she got a chance. She learnt to read his day in the smudges of dirt stuck under his finger nails, grime not even the most vigorous scrubbing and Scourgifying could shift entirely. Red soil meant the Mediterranean greenhouses, and clay was most likely from the Potions garden. Compost didn't show, but sometimes she could smell the sweet scent wafting from his cloak (Thistlethwaite had promptly banned Neville's beloved Gore-tex jacket, after almost having a heart attack at the audacity of Neville wearing it in the first place).

They were big, utilitarian hands, and good at everything from chopping parsley into pieces so fine they would have impressed Snape, to softly stroking Pig's head until he was cooing sleepily and almost nodding off. Sometimes, Neville's fingers would absentmindedly trace the long pale scar on his throat up and down, while he was pondering a particularly knotty problem.

Most of all, Hermione liked to watch him messing around with the ever-growing collection of potted plants on the windowsill in the kitchen, meticulous care evident in every graceful movement.

It was only after a few weeks that Hermione realised that she had moved into new territory without noticing. Her ridiculous hand obsession had been bad enough, but this was infinitely worse. She could hardly even see his blasted hands when he was pottering around with the plants, from were she was sitting! It only took her one afternoon to deduce what it was that constantly pulled her gaze to Neville, away from the highly classified treatise on blood magic, which she frankly should have been salivating over.

It was the fact that he looked like the happiest man in England, as he attended to his motley collection of cuttings. His inner goodness shone through so brightly it ought to have blinded any onlookers.

Hermione had seen more than her fair share of pure evil, and to her parents' consternation she had come to the belief that some people simply were bad. She was also far too familiar with ordinary people willing to stand by and do nothing, or even join in out of fear or greed. Long ago, she had let go of the silly notion that those who fought on the side of what was right were somehow superior to ordinary human beings.

Yet, for all her world-weariness, watching Neville Longbottom tend to the shoots of basil he had liberated from Kew Gardens filled Hermione with simple wonder. Despite everything he had gone through, there was not a scrap of bitterness in Neville. An onlooker may have been forgiven for believing that the year he led the rebellion against the Death Eaters that had taken over Hogwarts never existed.

He had simply taken a detour involving riding Thestrals, Bellatrix Lestrange and armed resistance, and then reverted to the peaceful path of the life he had chosen for himself. His parents were still the same as ever, and even that he managed to bear without complaint . Hermione had quite a lot of practice imagining what that would be like, and she was quite certain she wouldn't have been able to bear their fate as patiently as Neville did.

Hermione had known all this for a long time, in an abstract way. Now she understood it, in a big wave of affection and understanding that swept through her and left her reeling. The after-effects didn't seem to leave her for several days. It became weeks, and she still couldn't stop thinking about Neville.

It wasn't until late November, when Neville returned from Kew Gardens giddy with excitement and loaded with an armful of kale, that she finally caught up with what was going on. His enthusiasm for brassica failed to fill Hermione with dismay, even though she loathed cabbage and had no reason to assume this was any better. Instead of the natural reluctance one would have expected, a beaming Neville bearing kale made her heart skip and her breath get stuck somewhere between her nose and her lungs.

From then onwards her life had been an exercise in suppression, obfuscation and denial, until Malfoy neatly punctured her bubble.

A decade of living in close proximity to Ron, harbouring tender feelings for him at least half of that time, had imbued Hermione with a healthy respect for just how messy it could get when friendship and love were mixed up. Their subsequent break-up had reinforced the lesson.

It was galling to realise that if she had been a little more like Lavender at her silliest, she could have used the skills honed on fifth-year boys to ascertain whether there was any prospect of Neville ever seeing her that way.

The way she wanted him to look at her, like Harry looked at Ginny.

Instead, Hermione had a promising career at the Ministry and an abject fear of putting her mettle to the test.

Harry and Ron could have confirmed that she wasn't half as cautious as she was made out to be among her friends. If the odds were good enough, she would take hair-raising risks. So far, she had decided that they weren't, and that's why she was sitting on her bed on New Year's Eve in a dejected heap, fighting back angry tears at her own cowardice.

Hermione gave herself half an hour to be miserable, then she told herself firmly that it was time to buck up and get on with it. After repairing her make-up, rather inexpertly, she squared her shoulders and went once more unto the breach.

With any luck, Malfoy would be gone by now.

-oOo-

* * *

There was a saying Hermione was fond of trotting out when she didn't like the way some films ended. She'd used it to dismiss both The Planet of The Apes, which Ron had quite liked, and Donnie Darko, which had been far too weird for him. The phrase was 'deus ex machina', and as far as Ron understood, it meant that someone else bailed out the heroes when they were completely stuck. Like a god from a machine, which apparently was what used to happen in the theatre in the olden days. He'd stopped listening around then, so he was a bit sketchy on the details.

Well, Ron was about to go deus ex machina on Hermione, whether she liked it or not. As soon as he'd come up a way of throwing out Malfoy which wasn't actually illegal and wouldn't get him in trouble with Williamson again. Just telling Malfoy to leave obviously wasn't enough.

At the moment they were just staring at each other: Ron, Neville, Malfoy and Alicia Spinnet, locked in an uncomfortable stand-off. Ron knew that Alicia was about five seconds from saying something daft again; he just knew it. Five, four, three, two... and off she went again.

"No one wants you here, Malfoy. You can just fuck off back to where you came from," Alicia said. She was obviously trying to sound cutting, but only managed a peeved-off Percy on the scale that started with an irritated Flobberworm and went all the way up to Ron's mum losing her rag.

Malfoy only smiled. He didn't even bother looking at Alicia, and turned that ugly smirk of his on Neville instead. The awkward silence continued, and Ron tried to rack his brain for some way of getting out of this with all his body parts still attached.

He was aware of movement behind him, but didn't stop looking at Malfoy for a second. He was on friendly terms with everyone else here, except that bastard Bletchley who he was certain was fudging the odds for the inter-departmental Quidditch betting pool. Ron would have to be a lot more stupid than he actually was to turn his back on Malfoy, even if there were two people covering for him.

It wasn't until they were almost level with him that he recognised the familiar navy robes with a red trim, worn by Aurors when on official business not requiring stealth. Chopra and Priswick: the two poor sods who'd lost the draw this year and were stuck working tonight.

Suddenly, things were looking up.

"Hi, Ron. Long time no see, Alicia. Neville Longbottom, is it?" Vignesh Chopra asked amiably.

"Er yes, " Neville said, surprised. Apparently he hadn't noticed them coming up. Herbologists didn't need constant vigilance, except when it came to aggressive flora.

"We've received a report of a disturbance at number 12, Grimmauld Place. Are you a resident of this dwelling?" Vignesh asked, in a voice that made it clear that he knew the answer already.

"Yes," Neville confirmed. He looked like he'd cottoned on, too.

"Can you confirm that it's correct that a-" Vignesh had fished out a scrap of parchment that he squinted at theatrically, "-Draco Malfoy is breaching the peace here, this fine evening?"

"Yeah. Definitely. Breaching it left, right and centre," Neville said, looking almost happy for the first time since Malfoy turned up.

"Wait a second! I'm not breaching the fucking peace! I was invited, look here!" Malfoy burst out, shoving his gilded invitation under Vignesh' nose.

"And that's why trespassing is not added to the list of offences. Sir," Vignesh replied smoothly, and Ron decided that he'd be invited to the party at Grimmauld Place next year. It was the least Ron could do.

"You- This is ridiculous!" Malfoy spluttered. "Weasley can't just call you in like that, you're his mates! I'll report you!"

"If you wish, sir. The Auror Ombudsman will address any complaints received from the public. You may be interested to know that this report was called in by a Hermione Granger, however, so there is no suggestion of impropriety on Auror Weasley's part."

"The fact that he is present at this occasion in a purely civilian capacity has no bearing on the execution of our duty," Lucy Priswick added, managing to sound almost as sanctimonious as Williamson did when he was giving you grief over not following procedure.

"If you would please come with us, Mr Malfoy, I'm sure this matter will be resolved to mutual satisfaction-" Vignesh started, but was interrupted by Malfoy.

"Like hell I will!" He swept his coat around him in what looked like a dramatic gesture, only to stumble immediately afterwards to avoid falling flat on his face. Obviously he hadn't counted on the Anti-Apparition wards, and Ron didn't bother muffling his snickering.

"You can't Apparate from here, Malfoy!" Alicia told him gleefully.

"Good thing you're here, Spinnet, or all the blind people would be stumped," Malfoy retorted, pulling out the invitation from the folds of his cloak again and squinting at the small print.

Several things happened at once:

"Mr Malfoy, we have to ask you-" Lucy started saying.

"What do you mean 'all the blind people'? There's no-" Alicia petulantly started.

"He's going to-" Ron started, as Malfoy said:

"Take me home," his lips only inches from the parchment that bore the inscription 'Susan Bones & Guest' in big golden letters in Hermione's handwriting.

"- activate the Portkey," Ron told the empty space where Malfoy had been standing a second before. "Right, lads. That went well."

"It got rid of Malfoy. I think that's pretty good," Neville said. Lucy and Vignesh didn't look as convinced.

"But we were going to bring him in and bore his tits off! I had a whole chapter in '_Magicke Most Foule'_ I was going to cite him with!" Lucy complained, and Ron almost regretted Malfoy's quick exit. If he were anything like Ron, he would have been begging to be released after just half an hour of Dangicourt's horribly boring treatise of magical misdemeanours.

"Are you sure he won't come back?" Vignesh asked, and rose even higher in Ron's esteem.

"Not a chance. The invitations are Portkeys that only work between eight this evening and five in the morning. They'll work twice, once to get here and then to take you back where you came from again," Neville explained.

"But how do you know for sure?" Lucy asked.

"Because Hermione made them," Neville replied with obvious pride, and Ron suddenly remembered that he had better get to work on part two of his plan for the evening. For a moment he wondered if this was the way Dumbledore had started off, and almost reconsidered.

When his Auror colleagues had left, after turning down the offers of staying on 'just for one drink' with obvious reluctance, Alicia finally went off to find Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson to tell them what just happened.

Ron grabbed hold of Neville's shoulders to prevent him from slipping away in the crowd, leaving Neville bemused but compliant. For a moment, Ron didn't know where to go. There seemed to be people in every nook and cranny, even the linen cupboard. Then he had an idea. Since the guests arrived and left by Portkey tonight, the front door was idle. Steering Neville in the right direction, Ron motioned to him to wait as he unlocked the door, and in a moment they were standing on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place. It was bitterly cold, but Ron had the foresight to grab two cloaks on the way out and they quickly covered up, although they still were shivering in the wind.

"W-w-what did you want to talk about, anyway? It's brass monkeys out here," Neville forced out between his chattering teeth.

"Honestly, mate. Are you a wizard, or what?" Ron asked exasperatedly. After some warming charms, and a nip each from Ron's hip flask, they felt ready to resume the conversation.

"D'you think Malfoy's coming back?" Neville asked.

"Nah. He doesn't want any trouble with the Ministry, so I reckon he'll stay away," Ron said confidently.

"Why did you want me to come out here, then?" Neville sounded almost irritated, for once.

Ron had another sip of Firewhiskey. This would require careful handling, he thought. If he put one foot wrong, things could go tits up completely. Not to mention he'd still have Hermione to contend with afterwards, even if everything went swimmingly. She wouldn't be one bit pleased to find Ron spilling her secrets, whether it was for the Greater Good or not. Caution and delicacy were definitely required if he wanted to hang on to all his appendages.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, Ronald Bilius Weasley (Order of Merlin, First Class) was on the case.

-oOo-

* * *

**One** **chapter** **left**!


	5. The Year Is Dying in the Night

**This is the last chapter; thank you for reading! Thanks also to ScottPress for being a great beta, I really appreciate it. **

**The lyrics in italics in this chapter are of course from Robert Burns' ****_Auld Lang Syne_****.**

* * *

**Chapter 5 **

**The Year Is Dying in the Night**

**-oOo-**

"Ginny, what's wrong?" Harry asked, his voice very close in the darkness. In the kitchen outside they could hear the din of voices rise and fall, punctuated by occasional laughter. To Ginny, it seemed a long way away.

To hell with it, she thought suddenly. If Harry, not the most perceptive man in the world, had figured out that something was up, he was hardly going to let go just like that. She'd be better off telling him now, she decided somewhat recklessly. Ginny had it up to here keeping secrets from him and Harry deserved to know, for better or worse.

It wasn't going to get any better, anyway.

"Harry, are you sitting down- Hey, why're we in the dark anyway?" she asked irritably. The faint light, slipping in through the crevices around the door frame, was suddenly eclipsed by her Lumos.

The nervous face of her love looked back at her from the same level; Harry had let himself slide down until he was sitting next to her on the flagstones.

"You're not about to tell me that Dolohov is swinging from the chandelier in the library, are you?"

Involuntarily, she smiled.

"No. This is something else. It's about us," she said, the smile disappearing from her face.

"Oh." Harry looked at her, sideways. For a moment, it looked as if he was thinking hard. "Is this the reason you've been so snappy all week?"

"Probably," she said with a grimace, concentrating so hard on trying to work out how to say this that she almost missed the way Harry's knuckles were turning white. He was clinging onto his wand like a drowning man.

Closing her eyes briefly and drawing a breath so deep she could taste the dank air of the basement, Ginny threw herself straight into it. Delicacy had been in short supply among the Weasleys when she was growing up, so she had never learnt how to sugarcoat things.

"I'm pregnant, Harry."

The silence was deafening. The only thing worse than the absolute quiet radiating from Harry was the sound of happy people out in the kitchen. Bastards, the lot of them, Ginny decided on the spot, while wondering why she was feeling so light-headed all of a sudden.

She wouldn't look at Harry; she refused to look, and focused her eyes straight in front of her. It must have been Kreacher who'd left that scratch on the wall. It was far too close to the skirting board for one of-

"Ginny?"

"Don't bloody 'Ginny' me, say something!" she snapped.

"Er- Do- do you want to marry me?" he croaked, and Ginny sighed. The familiar spectre of Harry riding to the rescue was rearing its head again. This was exactly what she had been afraid of.

"Of course I do, Harry, but not like this!"

"What's wrong with this?" he asked stubbornly.

Sometimes, Ginny thought Hermione had been right all those years ago; only that most men had the emotional range of a teaspoon, not just Ron.

"I don't want you to ask me because you feel you have to," she said, in a voice she hoped was steady enough to distract Harry from the tears she could feel pooling in her eyes again. Stupid hormones.

"That's not why I'm asking you."

"Then why are you asking me now, just after I told you I was pregnant?" 'You idiot' hung in the air between them, unspoken.

"Because I didn't think you'd say yes before," Harry explained, as if it was Ginny who was being a bit daft.

"What?"

"I know you don't want to end up like your mum, so I figured there wasn't any use asking you until in a few years' time." It sounded as if Harry had put a lot of thought into this, as he patiently explained his plans for their future. "I was hoping that you'd want to have kids eventually, but I wasn't going to push it until you were ready."

With one of those devastating looks that made Ginny feel like she was ten years old and starstruck again, Harry turned to her, his green eyes shining with sincerity and love.

"All I've ever wanted is to have a family with you. I'm not complaining if it happens a bit sooner than I thought."

Ginny was frozen to the spot. She had never expected this. He had been so very careful not to say anything before, but it was impossible to doubt his honesty now. Just as she was starting to believe him, Harry's face fell and he looked like his heart was being torn out of his chest.

"Unless- unless that's not what you want right now, and you want to- Ginny, of course it's your choice-"

"What are you talking about?" she managed to squeeze out, in a much too high-pitched voice.

"If you don't want to- to go through with it-"

Suddenly she understood what Harry was trying to say, and frowned.

"No! Of course not!" she said quickly, and the horrible, pinched expression on his face dissolved into a grin worthy of the Chudley Cannons winning the cup.

"So we're really going to have a baby?"

"Well, I am," she said dryly, barely concealing the relief beneath.

"And we're getting married?"

"I never said yes, remember," she couldn't help teasing him. A world where Ginny Weasley wouldn't marry Harry Potter when he asked her didn't exist.

"Help a bloke out here! What do you think your brothers will do to me if I get you up the duff without marrying you?"

They dissolved in laughter, and suddenly everything seemed bright and wonderful and as if it was going to be all right, and if Ginny cried a little Harry must have pretended not to notice.

"It's almost midnight. Shouldn't we get the champagne out?" Harry finally reminded her.

"I can't drink it, you idiot!" Ginny couldn't stop giggling; relief and joy kept bursting through.

"What about the rest of us? Just because you can't have any doesn't mean we should suffer," Harry said, happiness bubbling just beneath the surface. He couldn't have been serious to save his life.

"All right then." Right now, Ginny would agree to anything. "You'd better remember this."

"When?"

"Whenever I want you to do something for me, of course. The champagne cases are in the wine cellar," she instructed him.

When they emerged into the kitchen, champagne cases in tow - Ginny's Butterbeers temporarily forgotten - nothing seemed to have changed. The noise level still rivalled the Great Hall at Hogwarts at feeding time and Cho Chang still seemed to be good-naturedly putting up with Dennis Creevy peeking down her cleavage. What appeared to be a singing contest between Morag MacDougal and Seamus was still raging, with the girl Seamus had brought with him acting as a slightly star-struck audience of one.

"Where in the name of Olaf the Hairy and all his merry vikings have you two been?" a red-haired whirlwind asked them in exasperated tones, as he descended on them and almost knocked over the champagne. Further examination revealed to be George: he was too stocky to be Ron and too tall to be Charlie.

"What does it look like?" Ginny asked. She had learnt many things from her brothers, not least how not to answer questions.

"Did you have to dig a tunnel to the off-license to get that, or just Portkey over to France? Malfoy's gone, in case you're interested."

"Really?" Harry asked.

"Nah, I just turned him into a toad and stepped on him. Just kidding, Ginny!" George told them. "Hermione called in the Aurors - yes, Harry, I know you're an Auror too, but these were the poor sods actually on duty - and he just left. You'd think spending the guts of ten years trying to get one up on our Miss Granger would have taught him something. Apparently hope springs eternal even in the bosoms of Slytherins ."

"Can we not talk about Malfoy's bosom, George?" Ginny begged, as a wave of nausea reminded her there was more to being pregnant than telling the father.

With combined forces the three of them got the champagne out in the hall, and at ten to twelve Harry's magically reinforced voice asked everyone to join them to count in the new year.

* * *

It was Morag MacDougal who started the singing. After hearing only a few words in Morag's clear, high voice most of the rest of them joined in. They had spent a significant part of their lives in Scotland, after all, and McGonagall had made sure her students learnt the proper Scottish version.

_Should auld acquaintance be forgot,_

_And auld lang syne? _

Linking her hands with Seamus and Dean Thomas, Sarah was completely surrounded by Gryffindors who were better at singing loud than they were at singing well. Regardless, the intoxicating mix of Seamus, champagne and the sensation of being a part of something great made her feel that there was nowhere else she'd rather be right now.

Picking out Ginny Weasley in the crowd spilling onto the landings, Sarah was content to see whatever had been the matter with her seemed to have blown over now. Singing with the rest and clutching Harry's and George's hands in hers, even Sarah could tell that the youngest Weasley was beaming with happiness.

Ginny looked so bright and assured of her place in the world, in the thick of the crowd teeming with her family and friends, that Sarah felt a little jealous. Trying to clear her head a little, she looked away, through the window to the deserted square outside. To her surprise something was shining in the moonlight, near the iron fence encircling the decaying park which occupied the middle of Muggle Grimmauld Place. Once she was looking straight at it, Draco Malfoy's pale head of hair was unmistakable.

She knew that the enchantments laid on the house made it impossible, but Sarah could have sworn that her eyes met Malfoy's just before he pulled up his hood and melted into the shadows. He must have been here as a boy, she thought, absently remembering his mother was a Black.

Sarah had always loathed Malfoy, but now she felt an absurd pang of sympathy for him. How lonely did you need to get before spending New Year's Eve lurking outside the house of your arch-nemesis became an appealing prospect?

Inside the house, the last few lines of the old song echoed through the hall and her mind swivelled back to those inside.

Celebrating the new year at Grimmauld Place was everything Sarah had hoped it would be. It was better than the celebrations after the Battle of Hogwarts; much better. They finally seemed to have figured out how to live.

* * *

It was difficult to say no to Neville, Hermione thought ruefully. For her, especially. He so seldom asked for anything at all, so when he barrelled into her as soon as she emerged from the moping session in her room and asked her to come with him into the drawing room, she followed him without demur.

The drawing room was empty. It was on the same floor as Hermione's bedroom, so the teeming masses downstairs hadn't been allowed up there. Faintly, she could hear the beat of her enchanted boom box playing Muggle hits downstairs, otherwise the room looked the same as it always did. Neville's messenger bag laid abandoned on a chair, smelling of something earthy, and a pile of manuals on health and safety policies Harry swore he would get around to read over the Christmas holidays were piled on the table.

Normally, Hermione would have been delighted to get some time alone with Neville, but not now. Her ruminations on how impossible it was that anything would ever happen between them seemed to be reinforced by the familiarity of their surroundings.

Downstairs, there were bright lights and people dressed to the nines, and even champagne that they reluctantly had pitched in to get for a midnight toast. Up here were Neville and Hermione, and tonight seemed to be no different to any other night in Grimmauld Place.

Then Neville turned around, and the way his eyes were blazing told Hermione this was no run-of-the-mill conversation.

"What's going on, Neville?" she asked him sharply, instincts only half-buried awakening fast. "Is it Malfoy?"

"No! No, it's not Malfoy," he hastened to assure her, but then he seemed to be curiously reluctant to tell her what had made him pull her in here. Neville ran his fingers through his hair, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand the way he'd done when he was eleven and couldn't find Trevor.

"Ron told me-" he started, before changing his mind and interrupting himself.

Hermione felt a chill which had nothing to do with the lack of a fire in the drawing room. Don't let Ron have gone and opened his big mouth again, she thought despairingly. Please let him have kept it to himself this one time, just this once...

She had always considered it extremely unfortunate that the only Weasley possessing an ounce of discretion was Percy.

When Hermione was mentally cursing Ron's loose lips, Neville appeared to have plucked up his courage.

"Right. Here goes," he announced. "Hermione. I'm sure you know already, but just in case." He was speaking in jagged, short sentences, and he had her full attention now. "Just so you know. I'm in love with you. You don't need to do anything," he rushed to say, "nothing will change. Ro- I just thought I'd better tell you."

That made no sense. She was pretty certain she would have noticed if Neville returned her almost obsessive interest, but he had shown no sign of having any more tender feelings than he had for Harry, say, until tonight-

Oh.

If there was anyone among her friends who would try to comfort her, after seeing her being driven off by Malfoy, it was Neville. Gods knew he knew well enough what it was like to have your weaknesses shoved in your face, so it wasn't a massive leap for him to come up with this daft scheme to comfort her.

He probably didn't even realise why it was unlikely to succeed.

"Listen Neville, it's not that I don't appreciate it," Hermione said, almost pleadingly. Trying to hold the tears at bay, she cursed Fate for having made her fall in love with someone who was kind-hearted to a fault. She couldn't think of anyone else who would have tried to cheer her up in quite the same way, but it wasn't that unexpected coming from Neville. He could hardly be blamed for not having noticed that she had fallen head over heels for him, not when she had tried her best to hide it.

"I knew you asked me to the Yule Ball 'as a friend' in fourth year, and I know it's no different now," Hermione continued. She managed to sound almost breezy, while hoping she wasn't betraying just how much she would have wanted it to be different now.

She hadn't looked straight into Neville's eyes when delivering her little speech. There wasn't enough fortitude in the world to do that, even for her. Stealing a quick look at him from under her eyelashes, Hermione tried to draw comfort from his familiar shape, but instead it felt as if she was losing him. His hands, scrubbed shining clean for the party, were still and empty for once. There was a sharp twinge in her heart, as if they were an omen for her future.

"But it is," Neville said, surprise written large across his face. He took a step forward, stretching his hands out to take hold of hers. Hermione could no sooner have extracted her hands from his warm clasp than she could have burst through the window and flown away on the wings of the winter night without a wand.

"Everything is different now, you see," he said gently. "Everything. Ever since I came back from Australia. I just didn't know you felt the same way."

A few bars of Auld Lang Syne drifted in from the crowd on the stairs, which was singing loud enough to break through the Silencing charms. Hermione clearly needed to make more of an effort to keep out the sound of fifty Gryffindors singing their hearts out. They did it with the same abandon as they brought to everything else, and Hermione's heart suddenly swelled with affection for her friends out there.

_And there's a hand, my trusty friend!_

_And gie's a hand o' thine!_

For the first time since he had launched into his speech, Hermione raised her eyes to look at Neville. What she saw in his face made her own eyes blaze even brighter, and she brushed her fingers from his temple, down across his cheek, ever so tenderly.

Suddenly, looking and touching gingerly wasn't anywhere near enough and she was kissing him with everything she had in her. After the initial surprise he kissed her back with the same enthusiasm, and everything else drifted into the background.

Downstairs, the last line rang out:

_We'll take a cup of kindness yet,_

_For auld lang syne_

**-oO THE END Oo-**

* * *

**If you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I did writing it! **

**Reviews are most appreciated and any constructive criticism is very welcome. Anything you want to share will help me write a better story the next time.  
**


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